News

14/06/2021

Municipal Response to COVID-19 in Business Sector

Review of the Online Workshop on May 27, 2021

Photo: Andrii Shevchuk | Dreamstime.com

On 27th of May virtual workshop on Municipal Response to COVID-19 in Business Sector took place as part of the ongoing Event series “Municipal Response to COVID-19”.  It is commissioned by the GIZ project “Connective Cities – The Community of Practice for Sustainable Urban Development”.

The Workshop was dedicated to exploring municipal initiatives and measures taken to address economic and business sector challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Its aim was to review how municipalities have managed to support vulnerable businesses during this period. Moreover, the web-seminar explored innovative private-sector support schemes responding to COVID-19, outlined the actions and strategies deployed by cities to communicate with the private sector, and highlighted the importance of business recovery plans.

Approximately 40 participants from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Georgia, Germany, Peru and South Africa took part in the workshop.

Program

This virtual event was opened by welcoming remarks made by Dr. Piotr Żuber. Dr. Żuber provided background information of the workshop and briefly overviewed the agenda. Following the introduction, Mr. Irakli Samkharadze, Regional Coordinator, Connective Cities, GIZ, thanked all attendees for their participation and briefly introduced Connective Cities project and its objectives.

Core part of the workshop was structured according to themes and went as follows:

  1. Presentation of the best practices in terms of innovative business approaches and business recovery plans in response to the COVID-19 crisis among Connective Cities network members.
  2. Detailed cases of municipal responses to COVID-19 in the business sector from Lima (Peru) presented by Ms. Patricia Talavera, Head of Economic Development Department at Lima
  3. Cases of Cape Town (South Africa) presented by Mr. Lance Greyling, City of Cape Town’s Director for Enterprise and Investment.
  4. Q&A session following themes of presentations, during which participants actively discussed their experiences and aspects that could be useful from introduced cases.
  5. Interactive discussion panel focusing on the effectiveness of business recovery plans at municipal level during the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants reviewed the role of business recovery plans at the local level and how these can ensure smoother and faster recovery in the post-pandemic era. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Giorgi Khishtovani, and panel participants were Dr. Piotr Zuber, Senior Lecturer at University of Warsaw (Poland), and Mr. Vakhtang Lomjaria, Head of Municipal Department of Economic Development, Tbilisi (Georgia).

Presentations

The main measures for Economic Reactivation
Ms. Patricia Talavera, Head of Economic Development Department, Lima, Peru

Enterprise & Investment, Support for SMME’s during COVID -19
Mr. Lance Greyling, City of Cape Town’s Director for Enterprise and Investment, Cape Town, South Africa

Methodology and Results of the Research on Covid-19 Responses
Mr. Giorgi Khishtovani, Research Director, PMCG

Results

During this online workshop representatives from multitudes of municipalities exchanged their experiences and insights on business recovery possibilities.

Participants were introduced to various already implemented recovery plans or activities from around the world. They were also given insight into some of future business recuperation possibilities and trends from around the world.  One such example, in particular plan for business support in Tbilisi, Georgia was delivered by the governmental body representative himself

Impressions


Author:
Connective Cities


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